


Please Don't Feed The Wildlife

by solipsist



Category: Outlast (Video Games)
Genre: Comedy, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Dark Comedy, Dark Crack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-13 02:29:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29394810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/solipsist/pseuds/solipsist
Summary: There's the undeniable fact that Rick is going to be terminated. Good standing and graces between himself and the heads of Murkoff can only survive for so long after multiple patient deaths and general fuckery.Well, Rick wasn't going to just stand there and take it on his last day. And what were they going to do about that? Arrest him? They should know - touch him and they're all coming down with him.That was the plan, anyways. Punish those idiots for an uncompromising workplace and all those dirty little secrets he had to bury without reward.Then that raccoon showed up.
Kudos: 3





	Please Don't Feed The Wildlife

In a word, Jeremy is revolted. 

"Oh my God," Waylon complains when he bites down into the offending sandwich, "I'm not spending more than ten dollars on lunch." 

"You - Park, for three dollars, they're not even using real ham. You're probably some eating dead rat." 

"Has anyone told you there's something wrong with you? There's something wrong with you." 

"No, no, don't deflect. You paid three dollars for that. Three dollars to supposedly breed the sow, raise the piglet, feed the pig, pay for the food, the building, the workers, bills, and still make a profit. And then they kill the pig and sell the meat to put on your sandwich. For three dollars. It can't be three dollars. I had a chocolate Dove bar once and found a bone in it." 

Waylon reflects on this. 

Waylon, with purpose this time, finishes the sandwich and picks at an apple. He'd have a better argument if Jeremy was anywhere but on his desk, blocking his computer. 

"Jeremy, not only are you a New Yorker, you've also got some lady's head in your fridge." 

"I wrapped it up. It's sanitary." 

"You wrapped it." 

"Besides," if Jeremy had longer hair, he'd flip it. He contents himself with crossing a leg over and flashing Waylon a look of contempt. 

"I'm from the upper part of New York. You want to worry about a New Yorker? Worry about Rick. You know he's got a condo in Staten Island? Staten Island, Park. Three percent of the New York population is radioactive. He's probably one of them. Oh God - you know, sometimes I feel queasy around him --" 

Waylon doesn't know what to do with this information. 

"I'm from California." 

"Shut up." 

Something skitters along in the walls. Jeremy doesn't hear, Waylon can. Sticker comes off the apple. Waylon pretends to flirt, grips Jeremy's thigh. Sticker is now on Jeremy's thigh. Between himself, Jeremy, the patients; Waylon plays with the idea of who is crazier. Waylon, who hears and sees life where there is none. Jeremy, who lives in a world as fragile as an eggshell. 

Or them. 

Them. 

Logically, every patient is different. One man, another man, and another. A unique mind. Different faces. Varying crimes and degrees of sanity. 

Logically. 

Maybe one, even two, have really stood out to Waylon. Potentially. He hopes. 

But they are singular. One set of eyes, one nose, one face, one voice. Details reduced to lines creating vague shapes until everyone on the wrong side of the glass is a haze of flesh and grey uniform. 

"You wouldn't be affected. You've probably eaten enough rats throughout your lifetime to adapt to the diseases they carry. I bet you could eat glue right now and not feel a thing. Do you know the effects of radiation?" 

Waylon declines to make a poor joke pointing out if they had followed this train of thinking, it would undoubtedly point to whatever diseases Waylon carried from his three dollar sandwiches would most likely mean he had contaminated Jeremy at some point. 

"Balding? No, that's chemo. I dunno." 

Jeremy still has not noticed the sticker. 

“I’m not balding. I’m not balding. I’m not.” 

Jeremy leans his head back, trying to look calm. He’s trying to look tired, he’s had a long night and a longer day. He’s got a lunch appointment that’s very important. He is going to rest against the wall of Waylon’s office and because his head is leaning back, his eyes may as well follow suit. There happens to be a window, it happens to send back a reflection of himself. Jeremy happens to get a good view of his head from the way he’s angled. 

This time, confidently: “I’m not balding.” 

With that done, Jeremy feels quite rested and jerks back into an upright position. Cool, collected, perfect. And if Waylon has anything to say about it, Jeremy will crack his skull open and leave him there for someone else to find. 

Enter Rick. 

Today, he reminds Waylon of a particularly greasy rat that had squeezed its way out from behind a mirror in the women’s bathroom. Waylon is somewhat secure in his gender and that set of bathrooms has been long abandoned, making it an ideal location to do lines when he was supposed to be working. The resemblance is not striking, but it’s the stiff way Rick is carrying himself today, so stiff he’s shaking, his eyes almost bugling and though Rick tries to keep his face blank and indiscernible from emotion, something terrified ripples underneath the skin. That rat stared back at him and that rat turned away to push itself back behind the mirror and Waylon really didn’t feel like finishing off the lines of cocaine he cut out on the counter. 

“Waylon. _Waylon_. We have a problem.” 

Imperceptibly, Jeremy shifts away; closer to Waylon, further from Rick. 

“Yeah, before you say anything, I just got a report from overhead. Apparently, it’s possible that the engine is leaking radiation and they want you to submit for some testing. You know. Just to make sure you’re not…” 

Jeremy waves his hand. He’s pretty sure he has the power to order that. He’s less sure Mount Massive has the resources to check it out. 

“.... infectious.” 

“Jer. I -.” 

Panic is forgotten for a moment, Rick utterly perplexed with Jeremy’s request. 

“What?” 

“What?” 

Jeremy’s elbow jabs Waylon. _Back me up._ This is lost on Waylon, “What?” 

“Not important,” Rick snaps before Jeremy can try again, “We have to go. Quietly. Now.” 

Jeremy and Waylon do not get up or make a beeline to the door. 

Rick can hear his molars skidding against each other. 

Even, concentrated, barely contained rage: “A raccoon. Got into the vents.” 

“Oh shit! Oh shit - Jeremy, move! I’ve got some cat food in my -” 

“No! No. This is bad. We don’t want to encourage the raccoon to move. Or do anything.” 

“You have cat food in your desk? What is wrong with you?” Jeremy delivers a square kick to Waylon’s head because Waylon has ducked down between his legs and he’s now noticed the fruit sticker on his thigh. 

“I set up mustard gas canisters in the vents for the off chance the board fucks me over and for every minute we bitch and moan in here, the closer that raccoon gets to triggering it.” 

Jeremy and Waylon do not get up or make a beeline to the door. They’re both frozen now, Waylon kneeling on the floor with a drawer half open, Jeremy’s kick incomplete and still against Waylon’s head, staring at Rick as if the three had very recently witnessed a fatal robbery and Rick snidely asked an employee when the blood would be mopped up. 

“You what.” 

Waylon’s response is to laugh nervously. He sounds like a car turning over. 

“Shut up, Waylon. Why? _Why_? In what? Why?” 

Rick stares blankly back, now failing to have a reason despite a thousand monologues that had run through his head for each grievance against Mount Massive. 

“You… never… know.” 

“Is there one in my office?” Jeremy has decided he’s going to kill Rick. 

Waylon is too stunned to really care that Jeremy has kicked him away again and lays there on the ground, gawking at the vent above his desk. 

“Um. Yeah? I’ve got one for every office?” What would be the purpose of setting up one canister for the entire building? 

“Mine too?” 

Waylon feels weak. 

“What did I ever do to you?” Jeremy is going to push him down a flight of stairs and break Rick’s neck and leave his dying body to gasp and writhe in the compost heap outside near the gardener’s sheds. 

It was only last week Jeremy had gotten into his head that he had to decapitate the cute girl he went out with. The date was bad enough. Rick swore up and down it would end badly. He knows these things. And sure enough, Jeremy had stumbled dazed into Rick’s rooms at three in the morning, muttering about nothing and passing out on the couch. To make matters worse, Jeremy had stolen a coat belonging to Rick. Jeremy used the coat to wrap the head, excusing it with _was I supposed to just let it roll around? Like that? In the back of the car?_ Yes! He was supposed to! Or use literally anything else but his coat! 

“I’ll tell you later. Waylon, will you get up?” 

Waylon rolls over onto his side. He wants to bemoan his colleagues for being utterly insane. 

“Oh my God, it was there the entire time and I didn’t see it. I can see it right now. I saw something earlier and I thought it was because I’m on a substitution for Seroquel and not the real thing, oh my God.” 

“Look what you did,” Jeremy snarled, “he’s having an episode now because of you.” 

“It’s not my fault someone let a raccoon in. You know, I didn’t have to come in and warn you. I could’ve just left. I could’ve let you deal with it on your own --- riots.” 

“What?” 

“It’ll be useful in case of a riot.” 

“Raccoon.” 

“You. Fuck you.” 

“Oh, I’m sorry, am I the bad guy for looking out for our safety?” 

“Raccoon.” 

“Shut up, Waylon!” 

Waylon wasn’t sure what he thought the pawpads of a raccoon looked like. Logically, it made sense they were leathery and ugly. But he’s disappointed they don’t at all look like cat beans. Feeling very limp, he watches it fumble around the limited space in the vents and now comes to a horrifying conclusion that if raccoons have disgusting little flesh hands, kangaroos probably have the same as well. Nobody needs to wonder what the _clink_ that rolls out of the vent was. 

“I’m going to kill you! Son of a bitch!” 

Jeremy claws for Rick’s throat, clammy hands closing in around his neck, Waylon is still on the floor wondering how painful mustard gas is and if it meant a couple weeks off of work. He realizes it probably means a visit to the ICU and that means questions about all of the substances they’ll find in his blood and that pushes him to depressedly get off the floor and peel Jeremy, screaming something about radiation, off of Rick, who is very confused about Staten Island having to do with anything. Waylon barely cares about the fight and only manages to subdue Jeremy long enough to wrestle off his suit jacket before Jeremy springs back onto Rick, now changing the subject of his rant to - 

Well. He’s yelling something. Waylon can tell that much. He’s trying to ignore the clash behind him, trying to act as if he doesn’t need to referee the pair. It’s not his responsibility. 

First, Waylon presses the jacket to the vent covers. Versace? It’s probably some fucking designer brand with a price tag that Jeremy’s going to hammer into his head for the next week and a half because God forbid Waylon use a piece of fabric to try and seal off the gas. Which isn’t working anyways, because within seconds of this attempt, the mustard gas seeps through and Waylon, later on, will be asked to describe what it felt like. He can try to say it’s like his eyes were drying out and the insides of his lungs were rubbed raw with sandpaper. Maybe he can get them to understand a little better if they forcefully inhale bleach and hold it in. But not everything feels like something else. The vent cover comes tumbling down. Waylon is extremely disappointed he didn’t get a concussion from this. What should he focus on? The blood leaking out of his nose and being diluted with tears. He just coughed up something burning. Jeremy’s rage is so total that he’s failed to notice what’s going on and is soothing himself with a meaningless jumble of words while slamming Rick’s head into the wall over and over. 

There’s no serious safety procedures put into place because HR pointed out once there’s been no training or direction to go in case of a fire and Jeremy snapped back that if someone couldn’t figure out how to exit a burning building, they deserved to die in the flames. So Waylon, who is pretty sure he didn’t deserve to die in the fumes, can only writhe his way through the halls with Jeremy and Rick barely in pursuit. 

“Move!” 

Jeremy’s knife came down, burying itself into wood paneling, missing Rick’s ear by a few inches. Waylon took off and threw up something resembling coffee in the infirmary. 


End file.
